Sound Advice

Protect Your Hearing This Summer

Summer activities like concerts, swimming and diving–especially in colder waters, fireworks, and outdoor yard work like mowing can cause damage to the ears and your hearing. In order to protect your ears from permanent damage caused by summer activities, it is important to know what activities to avoid, when to wear protective earplugs, and when to see an audiologist.

Summer Sounds

The average summer sounds: boats, firecrackers and lawnmowers produce decibel levels that can increase or cause hearing loss and tinnitus. Inside the ear are small, delicate hairs that help conduct the noise that constitutes your hearing. Injury to these hair cells comes from exposure, sudden or prolonged, to loud noises like lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and fireworks at close range. Protecting hearing during these activities by wearing protective listening devices can help prevent hearing loss now and into the future.

Exposure to loud noise can also cause temporary or permanent tinnitus. Tinnitus is defined as a nagging buzzing, whistling, whining, or screeching noise in head or ears that varies in intensity and can be intermittent or constant. Some tinnitus sufferers describe the noise as being as piercing and sharp as the signal used in the emergency broadcast system. An audiologist can create custom made ear protection that allows a person to hear while simultaneously protecting the ears.

Earplugs

Protecting your hearing this summer can be as simple as wearing custom earplugs when mowing, attending concerts, working with machinery or engaging in other noisy activities. Earplugs for water sports and activities can keep water from the ears, protecting your ears while helping to prevent your body reacting to cold water conditions through exotosis. An audiologist can provide custom fit protective molds for your ears. Custom fit means more comfort and a greater chance of use like communication, but that’s not the only reason to see an audiologist.

Regular checkups with your audiologist are as important as regular checkups with your eye doctor. Your sense of hearing is a precious gift that needs to be maintained through proper care and prevention. Summer sounds and activities damage hearing, so take precautions and see an audiologist to head off any hearing health problems before they happen.